Conquer the forces of Death in A Wizard’s Lizard, an action RPG for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Explore ever-changing dungeons, filled with powerful weapons and items. Battle back the hordes of evil. Rescue villagers to improve your town and increase your power for your next trek into the dungeon.

June 24

We're excited to announce A Wizard's Lizard 2! This Summer we'll be launching a Kickstarter campaign to create more scaly adventures for Raga and his wizard. In the meantime, we'll be revealing more information about the sequel each week.

We've already been given the go-ahead by Valve to publish A Wizard's Lizard 2 on Steam so we won't have to go through Greenlight.

About This Game

Conquer the forces of Death in A Wizard’s Lizard, an action RPG for Windows, Mac and Linux. Explore ever-changing dungeons, filled with valuable treasure and powerful items, while battling back the hordes of evil. Rescue townsfolk to improve your town and aid your next trek into the dungeon.

Fans of The Legend of Zelda, Gauntlet, and The Binding of Isaac will love the retro-inspired twin-stick action of A Wizard's Lizard.

When the wizard of Amberfall unlocks the magic of eternal life, Death comes to take him away. Now his faithful pet lizard must brave procedurally-generated dungeons to save him!

Master Life & Death: Death is only the beginning as you continue to unlock secrets in the realm of the dead. Find hidden items only accessible to those who have died and discover the power of resurrection. Tread carefully, the dead do not wish to be disturbed.

Rebuild the Town: Rescue townsfolk trapped throughout the dungeons for increasing reward. Discover lost blueprints which allow the town's blacksmith to craft new weapons and armor.

Restore the Museum: Search Death's domain for stolen artifacts and legendary weapons. Every item you find is returned to the museum for display. Can you recover all of the powerful weapons, legendary armor, and magical items?

Control your lizard using your favorite gamepad (including the Xbox 360 controller) for full 360 degree movement and attacking.

My main issues with A Wizard's Lizard are: the game is too repetitive; there is not enough content; and everything becomes annoying (enemies, rooms, equipment).

A Small Explanation Of What A Wizard's Lizard Is All About

A Wizard's Lizard is very similar to The Binding of Isaac, but has an upgrade system similar to Rogue Legacy. During your crawl in the dungeon you can rescue an infinite number of villagers (3 max per crawl) who each give you 500 Gold to start each of your runs with. You spend your money before you enter the dungeon (or choose to save some or all of it for in-dungeon purchases). You spend your money on weapons / other equipment of which you purchase blueprints for in the dungeon. Dying will leave you in ghost form, but you can return to normal on the second part of each area.

The Game Is Too Repetitive

There are 3 main areas (Cemetery, Sewers, Crypt) each with 3 parts to them (e.g. Sewer 1, Sewer 2, Sewer 3) and 2 sub-areas with 1 part each respectively. That's it. All crawls feel the same because everything is set in stone. Blueprints, shopkeepers (and the kinds of items they sell), secret enemies and paths will always be in the same areas (e.g. Cemetery 2 will always have a blueprint for purchase, and Crypt 1 will always have a villager to rescue in the area). You always fight Death at the end. There are no surprises. Someone even wrote a guide on what you can find exactly in each level: https://steamcommunity.com/app/280040/discussions/0/540744934619347325/?

There Is Not Enough Content

Many of the weapons feel the same and I think a lot of them should not even be in the game. There's even a weapon called the Owl Slayer that is very effective against Owl enemies. The problem with bringing such a weapon is that Owl enemies are only in the first area (Cemetery). Owls are not even difficult enough to warrant bringing a weapon for the sole purpose of making it easier to kill them. As stated before, there are 3 main areas with 2 sub-areas. One of the sub-areas does not have a Boss at the end, so that's 3 main Bosses and 1 sub-boss. There are also a couple special enemies you can fight if you want to, but you usually do not want to. Unlocking shortcuts to the Crypt and Sewers are laughably easy. You just have to kill one of those special enemies in each area once, which is not hard at all. You will also encounter the same enemies over and over with the exception of a few rare enemies. The game has 72 blueprints to collect (those 72 blueprints do not even include every piece of equipment in the game). The game has a Museum that lets you know which weapons / equipment you have completed the game with. I have completed the game with every weapon and piece of equipment and I can say it was not worth it.

Everything Is Annoying

The Rooms: There is so much BS in a lot of the rooms that you have to be overly careful. Every room becomes a tedious nightmare making the game difficult for all the wrong reasons. There are so many non-enemy structures that when destroyed will send projectiles flying out and are very annoying. The Crypt is littered with arrow wall traps and the Sewers have wall traps that spew green liquid on you that slows you down and is more of a nuisance than anything. Rooms freeze with all activated / deactivated traps as they were when you leave a room. So if there is a sliding spike trap located near a door and it barely misses you as you get through the door, you will have to take damage on the way back for not paying attention. Another instance of this happening is when you die and become a ghost; all ghost enemies in previously completed rooms will be unfrozen like the spike trap. I died on a crawl one time after I was backtracking to get revived when I went through a room I had cleared before when I was alive, but now it had a skull ghost in the doorway which killed me instantly upon entering the room. Another annoying part of the rooms is that they can have annoying traps like webs on the floor that slow you down, fans that push or pull you, spike traps that spring up from under the floor, and spike traps that slide across the floor when you get in range. They are all annoying and everywhere.

The Weapons / Equipment: Damage upgrades are necessary if you want to have a fun time in your crawls, but they are somewhat rare (for one thing you cannot purchase any of them at the town before a crawl) and all of the damage upgrades except for the charms come with a downgrade. The downgrade is that with each piece of spiked equipment you put on, your fire rate will go down.

The Enemies: Once you enter a room with enemies you cannot leave until every enemy is dead (except for the 2 crystal enemies). This becomes especially annoying when you go into a room on accident. Some of the enemies can be fun to fight like the two types of Owls who attack you depending on which Owl type you attack which have some great strategic scenarios. And then there are all of the other enemies who all feel the same. Some enemies can freeze or slow you, but the majority of them just charge at you. The later stages feel like there are too many enemies / traps and the enemies have too much health. Some enemies can even kill you in one hit with an explosion against a wall.

Final Thoughts

If you're a completionist, you may find some entertainment from collecting every available blueprint (which was a pain to do by the way) or completing the game with every weapon and piece of equipment (which also was not very fun). The Museum also tracks how many times you've killed an enemy and will make the trophy of that monster Golden when you've "Mastered" killing them. This can mean a low number of kills like 25 or upwards of 500+. I'm not even going to try that because a lot of the enemies are rare or take a long time to get to.

You may also be interested in this game if you want a 10-20 hour game that you never want to play again.

Most people seem to compare this game to Binding of Isaac, and that's a fair comparison. A Wizard's Lizard is a topdown twinstick Rogue-like shooter in which you explore the floors of the different dungeons, gradually earning new equipment, weapons and powers to help you along the way.

As far as a "clone" of Binding of Isaac goes, this one is actually pretty solid. It feels and plays the part, has great music, and is presented in a graphical aesthetic that feels all it's own.

One of the game's innovations is the hub village area you start in before you set out for your run attempt. At first, the village is barren and lacking in population. With each run you will occasionally find villagers who have been kidnapped by monsters. Rescue them and they return to the village, each villager rewarding you with a permanent 500 Gold boost for future runs. In each run you will also occasionally find purchasable Blueprints, which when bought will add one random item to the village store for purchase. Eventually, you will earn enough starting Gold to buy some starting equipment that fits your play style, or experiment and try different things. It's a really well thought out idea that encourages replaying and rewards players that stick with it long enough so that they can influence their run's start and not leave upgrades entirely up to luck.

What really helps distinguish this game from Binding of Isaac is the life/death mechanic. Traditionally, you'll be playing most of your runs alive, but if you lose all your health, you die, and come back as an afterlife spirit, giving you a second chance. The flipside to this is that there are far more enemies in each room in death, so you have to be even more careful when in this state. If you lose your health while a spirit, you die for good, and it's Game Over. Certain points in the game will allow you to bring yourself back to life, and there are some sections which require you to be either dead or alive to access or pass through, so it's a pretty nice idea to keep things interesting.

Newcomers to this who play Binding of Isaac frequently with the Xbox 360 controller, a small warning. This game has native controller support, but your shots will be aimed in any direction you point the control stick, not just N/S/E/W. If you're like me, you could be aiming in the slightly incorrect direction due to the placement of your thumb on the controller. With just four directions, there's plenty room for error in Binding of Isaac. Here, you have put in a bit more effort to make sure your shots are going in just the right direction. You'll eventually adapt, it just takes getting used to at first.

It's no Binding of Isaac, but if you're looking for a cute, gore-free alternative that's pretty enjoyable in it's own right, you could do worse than A Wizard's Lizard. Highly recommended when it's on sale.

Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. You are doing the same thing over and over. Nothing exciting happens. It's fun at first, but gets old pretty fast. I had read several reviews giving it a nod towards The Binding of Isaac. In a way, it is, but it has nowhere near the randomness (is that a word?) of that game. I really like the graphic style and music though. That is what kept me playing as long as I did. It is definitely not a terrible game, I just lost interest fast. One thing I do know that would help the game out considerably is if there were more health ups dropping. The only time I saw them fall was early in the game...when you don't need them. That was a bit annoying.

Lost Decade Games has giving the world a real gem of an instant classic with A Wizards Lizard.

The art style seem to devide people, but the gameplay sure doesn't. The little Lizard Raga walks, shoots, turns, scoots and everything else right on cue. Its one of those rare games where if you die, its your own dang fault.

Level layout is great too, viewed from a near top down (Isaac style). Theres so many dead ends that can lead to certain death or a ton of gold, or maybe even a weapon upgrade. The thrill of finding one of your favorite weapons in a random chest after a tough room is amazing. In my case finding a trident makes my run instantly better.

I absolutely love the whole "you die and get a second chance as an angel lizard while you can be resurrected and keep going"-bit. I also really like the fact that the ghosts of all your slain enemies can come back to haunt you the spirit world! Making you choose between disturbing the dead and possibly get more money, or letting them rest in peace and have fewer enemies when you die.. cause you will. A lot.

If you enjoy games like Binding of Isaac, Spelunky, Rogue Legacy I'm betting you'll like this cute little Lizards adventures as well.